Posts Tagged ‘Diversity’
Walking in Grace: Affirming Marriage for All Loving Couples
Presbyteries have now voted YES! The Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (USA) now includes all loving and committed couples. Amendment 14F was ratified by 51% of our Presbyteries. In the PC(USA), marriage is now defined as between “two people.” More Light Presbyterians embarked on this journey decades ago. One man stood up at…
Read MoreThe Day Love Reigned In Florida
From faiths of all traditions, we clergy stood waiting to be selected like kids on a childhood playground. People from all walks of life had gathered: gay, straight, couples, singles, families with children, black, white, Latino, and Asian. People mingled introducing one to another. All of us there for one purpose, to celebrate and witness the…
Read MoreComing Out: An Ash Wednesday Reflection
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (…) But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which…
Read MoreFinding Home For The Holidays
The Christmas season is a difficult time of year for me. I am always bothered by our culture’s egregious forms of commercialism—and its either lack of or its anemic recognition of other forms for religious holidays like Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, and the celebration of the winter solstice during this season. Over the years, as I…
Read MoreWhy Racial Justice Matters To Believe Out Loud
On November 24, a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, decided not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown. Believe Out Loud laments this decision and the continued devaluation of black lives in the United States of America. Unfortunately, our community’s response to two posts we shared about the verdict in Ferguson…
Read MoreBelieve Out Loud Welcomes New Program Associate
Believe Out Loud is delighted to announce the hiring of Timothy DuWhite, Jr. as our new program associate. In this role, DuWhite will manage online engagement across Believe Out Loud’s social networks and provide support across program areas. DuWhite is the former program coordinator and office manager for Urban Word NYC, New York’s premier non-profit organization…
Read MoreLGBT Organizations Stand With Michael Brown’s Family
In a show of solidarity, LGBT organizations across the country are standing with the family of Michael Brown, the African-American teenager who was fatally shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri. As GLAAD reports, “Brown was unarmed, and witnesses say his hands were in the air when he was shot multiple times.” Tuesday’s letter states that we…
Read MoreOne Size Does Not Fit All: Pastoral Care For LGBT Seniors
I’ve found myself a part of people’s lives in a profound way while providing spiritual care as a chaplain for the past three years. While working in hospice and hospital settings, I have been privileged to be invited into the most delicate and precarious of times. I’ve held the hand of the dying, I’ve comforted…
Read More“I Am Loved Right Where I Am”: Ensuring Our Children Feel Belonged
I am a certified special education school teacher who has taught various grades and subjects in the states of New York, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. Prior to teaching I was a youth counselor for many years, where I worked with youth diagnosed from moderate to severe intellectual disabilities, behavioral and emotional challenges, autism/Asperger’s syndrome, and…
Read MoreMulticulturalism Cuts Both Ways
“A People of Many Faces” is one of the more intriguing sections of Pope Francis’s The Joy of the Gospel, having to do with cultural incarnations of Christianity. “We would not do justice to the logic of the incarnation if we thought of Christianity as monocultural and monotonous,” he writes. Earlier he states, “The history…
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